July 19 (Bloomberg) -- A top U.S. intelligence official
defended the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of U.S.
telephone records, saying only the “narrowest, most important
use of this data is permitted” by the law.

Robert Litt, the general counsel for the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence, used a speech in Washington
today to describe the legal authority and oversight of the two
classified intelligence programs first revealed by former NSA
contractor Edward Snowden.

“Security and privacy are not zero-sum,” Litt said in the
text of his remarks at the Brookings Institution. “We have an
obligation to give full meaning to both: to protect security
while at the same time protecting privacy and other
constitutional rights.”

Lawmakers and civil liberties advocates have voiced concern
-- and filed lawsuits -- related to the privacy implications of
the programs. Snowden, who fled the U.S. and is stranded at a
Moscow airport, was charged by the Justice Department with
espionage and theft of government property.

“I wish that I was here in happier times for the
intelligence community,” Litt said. “The last several weeks
have seen a series of reckless disclosures of classified
information about intelligence activities.”

Terror Threats

The disclosures of the classified details of two programs -
- one that collects the phone records of millions of U.S.
citizens and another that allows for targeted collection of
Internet records of foreigners “reasonably believed” to be
outside of the U.S. and suspected of involvement in terrorism -
- “threaten to cause long-lasting and irreversible harm to our
ability to identify and respond to the many threats facing our
nation,” Litt said.

Prompted by the disclosures, Congress is reviewing whether
to reauthorize or modify the part of the U.S. Patriot Act, known
as section 215, that allows for the bulk collection of the
telephone records of millions of U.S. citizens.

Representative James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican
and senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, told U.S.
officials at a congressional hearing this week that without
changes, the House did not have the votes to pass a
reauthorization of the program when it comes due in 2015.

Michigan Representative John Conyers, the top Democrat on
the Judiciary panel, called on the intelligence services to
“stop collecting this information immediately” if it cannot
provide a “clear, public explanation” for how the bulk
collection of phone records is consistent with the law.

Litt defended the legality of the collection and pushed
back on concerns raised by civil liberties groups and some
lawmakers that it violated the Fourth Amendment, which bars
unreasonable search and seizure of the information of U.S.
citizens.

Litt said the phone records are “not subject to a
reasonable expectation of privacy for Fourth Amendment
purposes” because the information had been voluntarily provided
to a third party -- phone companies in these cases.

“I believe that our approach to achieving both security
and privacy is effective and appropriate,” he said.